End of Summer Update #2: Reviewing Changes…

Ah the end of Summer. Its nice to lose the heat, but I think I prefer that over the cold of Winter. You really can’t win either way I guess. At least you get some good colors as we transition to Winter. So yes, let’s get back to it. Here are the changes coming to my Reviews as we leave Summer time.

Changes Coming To Reviews:

Reviews are getting categorized.

More in-depth looks at games, including backstories about the game and dev team as well as looking at things such as settings.

Not quite as dramatic as my Personal Musing update, but I figured it was worth a post at any rate. The idea of my reviews are to do an in-depth look at a game after I’ve completed it. Then I give my thoughts on the experience of the game, what I liked and didn’t like. Because I usually review games some time after they are released, I’ve been finding I want to talk about the history of the game and the people who worked on it. The changes above have already happened with the Legend of Grimrock review I did recently. I’ve had quite a bit of writers block when it came to reviews, which is why personal musings came about. But I decided to take the categorization style I do in PMs and put it into reviews and see if that would help. Which it did, so I’ll be doing this in all my reviews from now on. The free-style I was doing caused a lot of delays and required a lot of editing. My hope is that this format will eliminate a lot of editing needs and allow me to push out reviews quicker. Its funny to me how I’ve come to a similar setup I started back in Tidalis, my first review. With better writing. Hopefully. Which will be my main focus here on out is working on making my reviews even better.

YouTube Channel Reviews are posts I still want to do. Its just been tricky to nail down the format but with the changes I brought to game reviews, I think I’ll be able to push these forward and make them better. Podcast reviews have been pretty good as well and I plan on continuing them. The major change to both of these kinds of reviews is that I won’t be doing one every month. It will be random when they are published and I prefer it that way. I still want to do these to highlight really good content being produced by people on the Internet. One note I should make, is that its unlikely I’ll review a terrible podcast/channel. I might talk about it in a musing, but since there are so many subpar channels/podcasts, it isn’t worth my time to look at each and everyone of them. Although, who knows, I might figure out a way to showcase the ones to avoid.

I don’t know if I’ll ever do reviews on or near the release date of games like I did with A Valley Without Wind or Tribes Ascend. I both like and dislike how those reviews turned out. I liked the fact that I had them out and they are good reviews, but I feel that with all of the changes that have come to both games, those reviews are largely pointless. And plus, my thoughts on Tribes has changed significantly over the life of the game. If I ever find myself in a position of having access to a BETA of a game, I think this what I’ll do:

Talk about my experiences in the BETA.

Talk about whether the game is worth looking into or not.

Publish a Pre-Review post or “BETA” review if you will.

Release a full review of the game later on, when I have time to do it better.

So whether I do near-release reviews in the future will depend on a lot of things. Money and time being the two biggest things I have to consider and doing reviews like these definitely requires a lot of time. For now, I wouldn’t expect reviews like those in the near future.

Ongoing reviews were reviews that I was going to do on games in constant development, like F2P or games that had constant updates to them. However, while it was an interesting idea in theory, it wasn’t a good idea in practice. The Tribes Ascend ongoing reviews were quickly cancelled when I realized that I simply could not afford to buy all the weapons and take time to look them over. I think there are other people more willing and able to put that much time and effort into the game. As far as AVWW is concerned, I will be doing a post on it after the official update comes with the newly enhanced graphics and style. I still want to try and make these types of reviews work, I just have to figure out the right method. It may be that I might just scrap the whole idea after the AVWW’s next post. I’ll decide that when we get there.

The one thing I’ll be talking about at a later date is Broken Reviews. I’m currently holding off from doing those reviews until I figure out a better format for them. I’m not very happy with how they have turned out. I feel like they are lazy reviews of games I don’t finish. I don’t want to devote a ton of time to a game I didn’t complete but at the same time, I don’t want them to feel lazy. So I’m going to be thinking them over. Oh and they’ll be getting a name change. Broken just does not work for many reasons. So keep an eye out for an update.

If you have any comments about how I review games, YouTube channels or Podcasts, I’d like to hear your thoughts below. Thanks!

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About A Paladin & Schedule

Welcome to my Gaming Review website. I've been creating content on a regular basis for over six years now but there's been a change. I'm currently on hiatus while I'm employed at a different job because I can't do that job and do this blog. There's no way I can do both and remain unbiased. I do not have a return ETA at this time but I thank everyone for their support over the years. It means a lot.